How to get out of your thinking groove. Spark your thoughts by using your eyes.
Are you a ‘visual person’?
No? Yes you are. I did not think I was a particularly visual person either. But we all are. Forget ‘learning styles’ — they are actually one of the biggest myths in psychology. Do you have preferences in the way you process information? Of course. But your brain definitely emphasizes one: vision. 2/3 of your brain processes are busy with it.
There you have it. A huge visual thinking power, immediately at your disposal. Don’t you think it is a shame that you never learned to use and develop it? I think it is. Especially since it makes your thinking smarter, lighter and more creative.
Fortunately you can always pick it up and make your thinking more flexible. What do you do when you solve problems? Most of us have favorite thinking strategies. Like analyzing or abstracting. What are your favorite approaches? When you use different ‘vehicles for thought’ — e.g. text instead of a mathematical notation — you allow for different thinking strategies.
What does visual thinking has to do with that? Choosing a visual ‘vehicle for thought’ opens the door to a broad range of thinking strategies. For example, holistic thinking (because you see the whole picture), spatial thinking (you eyes can jump around) and transformational (you can manipulate it). For more examples, see Experiences in Visual Thinking Revisited.
Ok. So how do you ‘think visually’? Let’s start with the most obvious: seeing. By drawing a mind map of your question you create fertile ground for some visual brain powered problem solving. Your eyes love to solve puzzles and immediately get to work. Your brain automatically starts to look for coherence, sees what is missing and finds new connections.
A mindmap … Is that all? Yes and no. Seeing is about the way you look. Can you recognize where your looking is ‘stereotyped’? We all have pictures in our head of how we think the world works. That makes it hard to see what is truly in front of us. By improving the accuracy with which you look at things and situations, you train your mind’s eye. The better you look, the more you remember and the more you can imagine.
Imagination is seeing with your mind’s eye. It helps you to find visual forms for your ideas. You may say ‘I am not a creative person’. But imagination is much more than that. In the words of Robert McKim: “It is all that you have ever learned or experienced — it is central to every perception and act. … It rules what you choose to see or ignore, like or dislike.” Your imagination determines the frame through which you look at things.
When you do not use it it your mind’s eye goes blind. In the sense that it becomes hard to come up with images for the concepts your want to explore. The frame you look through will be narrowed down to a few stereotypes. But it is easy to regain your mind’s eyesight. By improving the accuracy with which you look and by drawing. Sketching your ideas and experimenting with different forms boost your thinking.
‘But I can’t draw!’. Of course it helps if you have some skill in drawing, to respond fast and with ease. This comes easily with a bit of practice (everything you need to know about drawing you learned in primary school). And you can already unlock your visual thinking power with some basic shapes, key words and connecting lines. Drawing to think is not about artistic value. Often the most messy drawings lead to very productive thinking.
‘Visual thinking’ is a concept that is used in many ways and has no unequivocal definition. It is about targeting the threesome of seeing, imagining and drawing to a question you want to explore. Why would you go through all this trouble? Of course you don’t have to. But why not not use your high powered visual brain that is just sitting there? (And is easily distracted if you don’t.) Visual thinking helps you to tackle questions that matter to you. And to keep it light during the struggle it can sometimes be.
